This is a list of what i picked out so far my friend wants to wait for dx 10 before he go's all out on gfx cards just wanted some input from you guys to see if theres anything i overlooked
im open to suggestions on the cpu weather it be intel or amd and the mobo

Nice, really nice. But if I were you, I would get one of the cheaper 7600GT's (around $120-$130 after rebates), and get a slightly lower priced case, and spend that extra money on a better motherboard, and better RAM. ValueSelect RAM and an ECS won't do good in overclocking. And maybe even get an E6300. Same thing as E6400, but lower clock. So you could just overclock. But just IMO though, since I would try to save the most money. But if this isn't his $ limit, a better motherboard and better memory would help.

7600GT is a decent card, and will hold up until DirectX10. Upgrading the "ECS" and "Corsair Value" is essential, and should be main priority if he wants good performance. As I said earlier, get a lower priced case, and E6300 instead, and use the extra money to get a better motherboard and RAM.

It's like $40 less for an E6300, and there are pretty decent cases under $100. That's enough money to get a better motherboard.

nice guys i will look into it even tho he dont plan on ocing much cause hes not into all that he just wants to play games. im kinda new to the whole conroe platform so i don't know whats good and whats not so keep the comments coming

Well, even if he just wants to play games, you can overclock a little bit, not too much though, just enough. But, everything seems good besides motherboard and memory. Maybe an E6300, and even at 1.86Ghz it's still great. But besides that, it's all great, and good luck to you and your friend.

7600GT is a decent card, and will hold up until DirectX10. Upgrading the "ECS" and "Corsair Value" is essential, and should be main priority if he wants good performance. As I said earlier, get a lower priced case, and E6300 instead, and use the extra money to get a better motherboard and RAM.

It's like $40 less for an E6300, and there are pretty decent cases under $100. That's enough money to get a better motherboard.

There's an Asus P5N-SLI for $120, which is pretty good.

And for memory, there's Corsair XMS for $136. DDR2-800 too!

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this place is very bias against ecs, ask oppenions over at the pcper forums for less bias oppenions.

ecs these days clocks fine and quility wize are the same thing you get from other makers under their own names(ecs still makes some of the top companys boards for them)

ecs's rep comes from the bad cap days and people not looking at what they are buying for what they want to do with them that board should be fine.

i know core2 is the big thing now, but as i told my buddy when he was looking to build, dont ignore am2 from amd, k8l is due out mid next year(or earlyer) 65nm is due out by the end of this year, its cheaper for good parts for am2 then core2, and you have a few years(3-5 years easy) of upgrades on the way (cpu upgrades that is, am2 boards will work with am3 chips) so if you deside you want quadcore or whatever comes out after that you will beable to get a new cpu and just toss it into the board and bam faster system.

with intel every time they make changes to the core you endup buying a new mobo, 775 has 3 versions, 1-prescot 2-dualcore nutburst 3-conroe/core2
this is something you should consider if your building for the future, most people i know would rather beabl to just swap a cpu to gain perf then have to essiancly buy a whole new system.

also the x2 3600+ and a biostar tforce550 board(sweet clocker) will run you close to the same price as your core2 chip you have listed, aprox 130-150 for cpu, 80bucks or less for the board. and overclock to 2.8+gz easly, any video card you put in the system will be the bottleneck as that point, specly a 7600gt(even a x1950xtx is gonna be a bottleneck tho since it wont beable to keep up with the cpu)

i will list an example set for you of something that in games and everyday real user apps will give you the same perf and same or better parts quility just cheaper.

my advice is to up the video card, dont wait for dx10 as its bound to vista and vista is likely to be pushed back again, also for 66bucks more you can get the newer x1900gt based on the x1950 core, this board will give you a couple years of gaming joy vs the 7600gt thats already feeling the pain on mid-high res's in currrent games.

for video option that will last longer,well into/tru dx10 [/url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161029]x1950gt[/url] 199 or u can get the older x1900gt for 178bucks
the cards listed as x1900gt but as it says its the new version, its based on the x1950xtx core with 4 pipes/12 shaders dissabled (why its cheaper)

its still very up in the air when ms will acctualy get vista out, they are striping fetures to try and get it out sooner, they are also having problems with dx9/10 support under vista hence the date pushback(Smart move acctualy)

I was in this upgrade possition recently, i looked at core2, or waiting for dx10 cards then i talked to some people im related to/friends with who know whats up, they all said "get the best video card you can now for the best price you can and 2gb ram everthing else is 2ndary, dx10 cards will show when ms gets around to putting vista out"
and after thinking about it, well it made alot of sence, beisides the fact that the first gen of dx10 cards are going to endup replaced with more dx10 complyant cards a few months later and prices will drop on dx10 cards around that time is a good incintive to grab the most dx9/10 complyant card you can NOW and just sit back and wait and see, games for dx10 wont be seen for a couple years minimum, well true dx10 games anyway, look at dx9 its really only been getting true dx9 games for the last year if that yets been avalable for years now.

my advice swap out the ram for a 2gb kit, adding 105bucks aprox, and grab the x1900 seirse card adding 66-70bucks for a gamer 2gb ram is becoming a must,

so

80 board
160 cpu
48 psu
130 hdd
30 dvd
199 video(x1900gt based on x1950 core, overclocks like a dream)
214 2gb ocz ram kit(same kit i have, acctualy supports 400/533 and 667 spd timings)also has $25 MIR
861 total
very close to your orignal listed price
throw on a freezer64pro for better cooling (30bucks) and your at the price point you already had, but with a FAR more capable and longer lasting system, in 6moths to a year you can alwase swap the cpu out for him if he feels he needs it(doughtfull even with ut2k7 comming)

the 3800+ will overclock nicely, the bottleneck is still the gpu in current systems for gaming, so he wouldnt see a gaming perf diffrance between this and a core2 chip, this video card would easly last him till true dx10 cards are avalable, longer even i would guess/bet.

We have proven here that the flurry of canned benchmarks based on timedemos showing huge gains with Core 2 processors are virtually worthless in rating the true gaming performance of these processors today. The fact of the matter is that real-world gaming performance today greatly lies at the feet of your video card. Almost none of today’s games are performance limited by your CPU. Maybe that will change, but given the trends, it is not likely. You simply do not need a $1000 CPU to get great gaming performance as we proved months ago in our CPU Scaling article.

When it comes to playing games, the only persons that need to be even a little concerned with upgrading their CPU to a Core 2 processor might be those with high-end SLI, CrossFire, or GeForce GX2 video cards and we have yet to prove that due to the testing limitations we ran into. Then, and only then, you might see an Intel Core 2 processor deliver a performance advantage.

Lastly, I would advise everyone that is thinking of rushing out and purchasing their latest upgrade that we are sure to see HUGE pricing slashes out of AMD before the end of the month.

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i would also point out that an x2 at 2.6/2.7gz is at least as fast as the fx62(3800+ x2 am2 on a good board hit those clocks easly)

read the artical, and come to understand that for gaming theres no need for conroe even with high end video cards, only cf x1950xtx or sli 7900gtx or gx2 cards "may" see benifit, but whos gonna spend that kinda money on a video card when u can just wait and grab a next gen high end card when your current card stops cutting it?(newer cards more offten trumps 2x older/slower cards period)

Still, the ECS for Core 2's have little or no overclockability. The ECS P965 has very little, and the nF 570 SLI may also have little. Yeah, ECS is OK...but not the best, and you can get something better for $10-$20 more.

thats all fine and dandy but as i said before i want to build him a system that he does not need to oc at all due to the fact that he is a noob and i don't want him having to worry about shit like that i want the computer to work the way a dell would where the user don't have to tweak anything but still has the options there when the time comes .
secondly hes getting the core2 duo because he plans on doing alot of stuff with video which i know from my own experiences Intel does better i dont know why it just does my p4 2.6 encoded video about 20% faster than my current 3700+ . next regardless of what current benchmarks prove amd has yet to do really anything new with the k8 series they just keep adapting it where as c2d is a whole new design i foresee further down the road when vista comes out and apps start taking advantage of multi core the k8 platform will begin to show its age.
now on to justifying the 7600gt for the games he plays bf2 2142 and AA he don't need anything better right now i got me and x850xtpe and i can max all those games and still keep 35fps+ and as much as ive tried to be an ati fan boy considering all my cards have been ati honestly im fed up with there buggy drivers lack of linux support and overall suckages in there performance and stability

for linux u gotta read the guides in the unbuntu(Sp) wiki, theres a guide to get ur linux perf on part with windows perf, but why anybody would "game" on linux boggles the mind honestly, windows for games, linux for whatever else you want to do.

and windows x800/850 drivers are fine/exelent, 35 is enought for sp, mp you need more, 60+ at least to have a truely smooth exp.

and p4 2.6 beeting a properly configuared 3700+, not gonna happen, even with encoding, but then again you cant get your x850 to work properly you probbly cant figuar out how to config your system for proper perf when encoding eather, my 3700+ s754 system soundly stomps my buddys 3gz p4 system at everything including encoding to h264,xvid,3vix,theora,vorbis and thats with VERY little tweaking, just the stuff i alwase do to get a systems perf to be the best possable.

overclocking a64 is cake, no worries i have setup plenty of noobs with overclocked a64/s64 chips and even the one who had never use anything but a mac b4 hasnt had trouble in the last 2 years, people need to stop assuming that overclocking=OMFG HAX or OMFG problems, done properly and done concervertivly its rock stable and no hassle.

as to your assertion that core2duo are a totaly new design, NO THEY ARENT they are a varation on the p6 design, think pentium pro, p2, p3 and pentium-m, its not a new design, its a redesign/evolution on the same core they have had around forever.
they finly desided to dump nutburst and go back to a real arcitecture thats not all about clocks.

after seeing your specs i see you got a boards thats not good for clocking, infact its a very basic board in my exp, nothin special i see why you have problems with perf.

and gf2 needs 2gb ram PERIOD, check around some gaming forums, 512-1gb isnt enough to get proper perf out of it.

yes i agree tho, video editing/encoding will be faster with core2duo, if you use software that takes proper advantage of the chips.

and NO k8 wont be "showing its age" under vista and 64bit, it GAINS perf by moving to 64bit mode unlike core2 and intel chips that at best stay the same in perf and commonly LOOSE perf, know what your talking about b4 you make assertions about prosessor and system performance.

god i hope you dont plan to setup a noob with linux.....speclyf or gaming, that would just be crewl, specly if the person would have problems with a stably overclocked cpu.......*shakes head* back to reinstalling windows(trying a new drive a buddy gave me)